Stage 3: Using a Light Tent

Using a tripod as in Stage 2
is important to getting sharp and detailed pictures of LEGOs.
However, the tricky part of using a tripod is managing the lighting.
Even with three or more external lights, trying to reduce dark areas,
over-bright areas, and shadows can be tricky and tedious because the
results will vary a lot depending on the lights you use and the shape of
your robot. In addition, getting the white balance right can be
tricky when using external lights mixed with room lighting.

The ultimate solution to these problems, and the way to
get fully professional results, is to use a light tent, such as the
EZcube. The nylon material
diffuses the lighting from external lights so that the light is well
distributed evenly around the model and shadows are greatly reduced and
softened.

The models on nxtprograms.com
are taken using the
30" EZcube,
which is a good size for most LEGO robots, and the product conveniently
folds up into a small pouch when you are not using it. If
you get a light tent, you will also find it a convenient way to take
excellent photos of any small "still life" objects for various reasons
such as selling on eBay, etc.

Choosing a Background

The EZcube comes with a white background "sweep", but
white does not work well as a background for NXT robots because the
white LEGO pieces blend into the background too easily. For the
same reason, you don't want a gray or black background. So, the
photos on nxtprograms.com are taken using
a light beige background. The actual background used is a sheet of
pastel art paper, which has a nice matte (non-reflective) finish, and a
very subtle texture to further break up shadows and reflections.

Getting the Best Lighting

Although you can use any lighting with a light tent (even
just the camera's flash will produce better results if allowed to
reflect inside the tent), the best results will be obtained by using
three external lights with
daylight
florescent bulbs. This will ensure strong, even lighting, and
a perfect "white balance" that you won't need to adjust afterwards.
This whole setup can be bought
here
as a convenient kit, but you could also use your own lights. Using
this kit, you should place the two main lights directly on either side
of the light tent. For LEGO robots and parts, I suggest normally
placing the third accent light in front down low (on its stand without
the boom), with the EZcube's small round storage pouch placed over it to
diffuse it, as shown below.

EZcube Light Tent with three external lights

You can also position or hold the third accent light
wherever you want to get more light in certain areas for special
situations.

Finally, to get a perfect and consistent white balance
with this setup, you should turn off the room lights and draw the shades
to eliminate other light sources. An example of what happens if
you forget this can be found in in
Building Step 17 of the
Car with Game Controller Project, where I added a picture afterwards
as an intermediate step but forgot to turn off the room lights.

Light Tent Settings for Point and Shoot Cameras

You can get excellent results with a Point and Shoot camera using a
tripod and a light tent, and the settings are similar to the
Tripod Settings for Point and Shoot Cameras,
although you can get the camera a little closer. For the Canon
A570, I used:

Camera on Tripod

No Flash

Camera
about 2 feet away from the robot, using the optical zoom to
make the robot fill the frame.

Aperture Priority mode
with the f-stop set to f/8

ISO 80.

White balance set to "Daylight"
when using daylight florescent lights.

For convenience and consistency when taking multiple pictures in a light
tent (such as when making the building instructions on
nxtprograms.com), it is best to use an
SLR camera in Manual exposure mode. You can make some test shots
at different shutter speeds to determine the correct exposure for the
lights you are using, then use these settings for all of your light tent
photos. Most of the photos on
nxtprograms.com are taken at the following settings:

Useful Accessories

For added convenience when taking multiple pictures in
a light tent, it is helpful to get a remote shutter release cable for
your SLR camera, so you don't need to use a 2 second self-timer delay
when taking each picture. In addition, you could consider using a
lightweight fixed (non-zoom) 50mm lens to make the camera easier to
handle on the tripod. Zooming is not necessary (you can crop to
get close-ups), and it is better to keep a fixed 50mm setting for a
natural and consistent perspective anyway. The Nikon D200 with
these two accessories is shown below.